A single application that is loaded onto multiple computing systems can have user interfaces that are tailored to specific business partners. That is, the user interface of the application is configured specifically with the business partner in mind. For example, on one computing system the application is tailored to have a user interface that is associated with business partner A. In another example, in another computing system, the same application is tailored to have a user interface that is associated with business partner B.
In conventional systems, the user interface is typically built or configured to the application when the computing system is manufactured. This requires that the selected business partner be known prior to the manufacture of the computing resource. That is, the user interface is statically associated with the selected business partner. In other words, the user interface of the application cannot be changed and its association with the selected business partner is static. This poses a problem whenever a computing system with an application that has a user interface tailored to one business partner has need to change the user interface so that is tailored to another business partner.
To allow for selection between multiple user interfaces for a single application on a particular computing system, prior art solutions created several similar but distinctive applications that are installed on the computing system. Each of the distinctive applications has a user interface that is tailored to a distinctive business partner. For example, one application has a user interface that is tailored to business partner A, and another application that provides the same functionality has a user interface that is tailored to business partner B, etc. All of the various applications that perform the same functionality are installed and shipped on the same computing system. Thereafter, at run-time, only one application is selected to run and remain on the computing system, after it is determined which business partner is selected. The remaining applications that are tailored to business partners that were not selected are then uninstalled.
For instance, a computing resource may come equipped with several browsers as a user interface. Each of the browsers is tailored to a different business partner. For example, the business partners may be retailers from which a user of the computing resource purchased the computing resource. As such, although the browsers each provide the same basic browsing functionality, they are distinct from each other in that each browser may look different and provide default links that correspond to an associated business partner. In this way, the retailer/customer relationship can be further established between a business partner and the user.
The disadvantage to this approach is that for one application, unnecessary duplication of code is necessary to potentially service a plurality of business partners. That is, multiple applications each providing the same functionality and each tailored to a separate business partner are installed on the same computing system when only one application is retained and allowed to run at run-time for the computing system. This approach promotes a wasteful use of computing resources (e.g., memory) that can be used for storing other applications, especially when some or most of the computing resources will be freed when one application is selected and the remaining applications are uninstalled.
Therefore, prior art methods inefficiently used computing resources to allow for tailoring an application that provided a particular functionality to a selected business partner from multiple business partners.